The Research Proposal for the Master’s Dissertation Sample
Research Question
Main Research Question
What are the processes associated with global brand equity improvements for McDonald’s based on Promotional strategy?
Sub Questions
- What strategies are involved in improving the global brand equity for McDonald’s?
- How Brand equity has a direct relation to promotional strategies?
- What promotional strategies McDonald’s can utilise for improving its global brand equity?
Research Aim
The aim of this research is to analyse the impact of the increase in brand equity on a global scale for McDonald’s. This research further aims to analyse the useful promotional strategy that will have a major impact on improving global brand equity.
Research Objectives
- To find the processes involved in Brand Equity improvements for McDonald’s
- To analyse the impact of promotional strategy on improving Brand Equity
- To determine the positive and negative impact of promotional strategy on Brand Equity on a global scale
- To find the advantages for McDonald’s with improved brand equity on a global scale based on promotional strategy
Reasoned Justification of the study
McDonald’s is a global food brand with operations across approximately 120 countries (Mcdonalds, 2022). The number of stores has gradually increased over the last couple of decades.
Figure 1: Number of McDonald’s Restaurants on a global scale
(Source: Lock, 2022)
From figure 1, it can be observed that the number of restaurants has increased gradually since 2005. McDonald’s has approximately 40,000 restaurants across a variety of countries by the end of 2020 (Lock, 2022). Therefore maintaining the brand equity across the business will play an important role for the organisation in maintaining its place as a market leader in the global food industry. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has created new ways for conducting operational activities across the restaurant.
McDonald’s will need to rethink their strategy regarding food quality, menu choices, customer experience and conveniences involved with food production and delivery processes. The promotional strategy can be based on ensuring the health and safety of products as well as organisational employees and customers. This research will help to analyse the factors for ensuring the core values of McDonald’s and the promotional strategies that can be used for future business environments.
Limitations of the study
This research has primarily focused on the health and safety measures associated with McDonald’s operations and activities due to the recent Covid-19 pandemic. This research has not focused on other organisational factors such as environmental sustainability or organisational market competition in recent business environments. The collection of organisational data based on different countries has been an area of limitation for this research process.
Relevant Theme and Theory Area
Impact of Brand Equity on organisational performance
Brand equity plays a significant role in creating a sustainable business environment for food organisations. McDonald’s is known for its attractive and diverse menus that create a sense of excitement among its customers. However, the recent Covid-19 pandemic has created major concerns associated with the safety of food products across the restaurants of the company.
The organisation had to initiate a framework known as Safety+ for maintaining the safety of its supply chain (Mcdonalds, 2022). The promotional strategy of advertisements across digital media social media platforms can be used by McDonald’s for creating a positive impact on their customers. The specifics of health and safety measures can be advertised in the form of pop up videos to improve the brand equity of the company.
Different types of promotional strategy and their application
Social media advertisements are an effective process for increasing awareness among customers. The health and safety protocols can be advertised across different social media pages for improving the brand equity of the company (Zollo et al. 2020). TV and radio advertisements can be used for providing assistance for the online delivery applications associated with McDonald’s. Implementation of a feedback gathering process can be initiated across the restaurants for improving the brand equity of the company. (Seo and Park, 2018.)
Types of Data Employed
The data gathered for this research process will be collected with the help of secondary data collection processes. The gathered data will be analysed in the form of themes for creating a better understanding of the research topic. Terry et al. (2017) have opined that there are six stages associated with the thematic analysis process. Themes based on keywords associated with the research topic will be used for creating alignment between different areas associated with Brand equity and promotional strategies. Thematic analysis will provide time and resource-related advantages for the researchers in conducting the overall research process. Thematic analysis process will help researchers to implement a flexible research process supported by data.
Method of data collection
The process of data collection for conducting this research process will be based on secondary data collection processes. The secondary data collection processes will provide an opportunity for researchers to gather data across a variety of sources (Johnston, 2017). Authentic sources such as Google scholar and Pro-Quest will be used for gathering peer-reviewed journal articles based on promotional strategies for organisations for improving global brand equities. Authentic sources such as the company website will be used for gathering previous data regarding organisational promotional strategies. Newspaper articles and governmental websites will need to be followed for analysing the rules and regulations associated with the health and safety of food products and processes.
Preliminary Hypothesis
H0: Safety+ can positively enhance the brand equity on a global scale
H1:Safety+ can negatively enhance the brand equity on a global scale
Direction for further research
The research process will need to be analysed in such a manner that the impact of changes in health and safety rules can be easily understood. The business environment prior to the Covid-19 pandemic will need to be analysed with the business environment after the pandemic. The governmental website will need to be followed constantly for analysing the changes in rules and regulations associated with health and safety. The state website will need to be monitored by the researchers to get a clear picture of the health and safety rules. Researchers will need to collect organisational data across a variety of sources other than company annual reports (Rovelli and Rossi-Lamastra, 2018.). The data from other sources will allow researchers to compare different situations within their organisations. After comparison, researchers will be able to determine the areas to focus on for implementing an effective promotional strategy for McDonald’s.
Reference
Johnston, M.P., 2017. Secondary data analysis: A method of which the time has come. Qualitative and quantitative methods in libraries, 3(3), pp.619-626.
Lock, S., 2022. Number of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide 2005-2020.Available from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/219454/mcdonalds-restaurants-worldwide/.[Electronically accessed 30th March, 2022.]
Mcdonalds, 2022. Who We Are.Available from: https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/home.html.[Electronically accessed 30th March, 2022.]
Rovelli, P. and Rossi-Lamastra, C., 2018. Collecting data on TMTs’ organizational design: good practices from the StiMa project. Economia e Politica Industriale, 45(2), pp.175-213.
Seo, E.J. and Park, J.W., 2018. A study on the effects of social media marketing activities on brand equity and customer response in the airline industry. Journal of Air Transport Management, 66, pp.36-41.
Terry, G., Hayfield, N., Clarke, V. and Braun, V., 2017. Thematic analysis. The SAGE handbook of qualitative research in psychology, 2, pp.17-37.
Zollo, L., Filieri, R., Rialti, R. and Yoon, S., 2020. Unpacking the relationship between social media marketing and brand equity: The mediating role of consumers’ benefits and experience. Journal of Business Research, 117, pp.256-267.
